That with the Bifrost 2 would look 
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Funny you say that, it is being paired with a black Bifrost 2 
*and a black Lokius and an aluminum Valhalla. Not sure how Iām going to set this all upā¦
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Itās only been a label for 6 daysā¦maybe itāll get picked up soonā¦
edit:
When UPS misses the delivery date for no reason
edit2: when it goes back to the previous facility for no reason
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Rebelamp back in stock for all regions, ordered one and will leave impressions soon!
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Rebel has landed
Jury still out review-wise, may need to let it burn in a bit and my ears acclimatize, and EQ it a bit. Dont want to be too critical out the gate.
Nice paint-job though, kinda metallic flake to it
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So this has been a trip but after nearly a week I think I can have a take on this.
First off, build quality is great. From Kharkiv, Ukraine, a city in part known its tank factory, this thing looks like its built there. Its surprisingly not as heavy as I thought, but itās nonetheless a solid, minimalist industrial piece of kit. The Back in Black paintjob is nice, has a bit of metallic flake in it and fits well on my desk. Do I regret not getting the sexy green? Eh, not really. Itās big, that it blends is probably a good thing.
Knob feels good and weighty, pot is smoother than anything I own but thereās a slight scratchiness to it which you dont notice it in the actual sound. Its satisfying to roll. Pre-out switch is a bit stiff and honestly would have preferred something else for switches if I have to nitpick but it all does the job just fine and for a minimalist build it works.
As for sound, this thing needs burn in. It craves it. Itās straight up not good out the box. Let it settle. At first I thought it was harsh and had typed out some thoughts finding it had an uncomfortable tone on the highs to the point of being a no go for longer listening sessions. The bass was stronger than my tube amp but it was ultimately sounding like a poor-manās version of my Schiit Valhalla where it just wasnāt doing anything better or meaningfully different. Buyers remorse set in. 24 hours later it was a total 180 and having given it the weekend to just play with and enjoy I can confidently say everything I hated about it is gone.
This is a tubey sounding amp. Itās warm, itās buttery, it has powerful bass and smooth highs. The bass can be a bit blown out at times with my current EQ settings (which Iām trying not to change so I can A/B test a bit at the moment), and its a bit deep but without definition. Maybe for someone else, in your setup, this could come across as muddy. That said, with the HD800s, without my EQs going if I had to pick I think this is the best āstockā amp I have right now. On the whole playing with this has had me listening to and rediscovering music like I just bought the weirdest set of vintage tubes. I mean really, this thing is not natural or neutral, itās very flavored, it makes my Valhalla (with 50s Brimar tubes) sound neutral.
Percussive drums & guitars cut through bass like a machine gun into a mountain of Jell-O. Itās a flavor, itās not neutral, but itās ultra satisfying. Longer listening sessions are very nice. Put on some heavy metal and the smoothness means I can crank the volume higher without blowing my ears out (see: volume scaling below) or put on some electronic music to zone out to and let the bass and rich lower tones wash me away.
Volume scales nicely with this mix, and I find myself using high gain on older (pre loudness war) tracks, and it plays nice on recordings with deep dynamic range. The whole āuse high gain for planars and low for Sennheisersā or whatever lines I hear from some reviews is nonsense. Low gain is too low to listen to on my 300ohm headphones for a lot of tracks, so Iām usually on medium the majority of the time.
Anyway, enough rambling. Amp good. Amp smooth. Fake super tube in metal box from tank town.
(all thoughts based on an HD800 w/ Bifrost 2 & Lokius and impressions were in contrast to set tuning and performance of my retubed Valhalla which I deem to be āidealā. Nothing was done neutrally or analytically)
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I absolutely agree that burn in is required. I also found it a bit harsh with focal elex when first using this amp. However it really smooths out over time.
I know many of you think its my ears playing tricks. However i have my own tests that i believe can counter that theory.
The test was to stay away from the amp and elex combo for 1 week. I instead listened to my drop 6xx paired with my thx 789 all week long. The sound with this setup was the polar opposite of the Rebel Elex combo. Extremely smooth but boring and lacking in dynamics.
Hence i believe this one week departure deprogramed my ears.
When i went back to the Rebel combo the sound was still extremely smooth and dynamic.
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Yeah itās definitely not in the head, burn in is real. Iām not talking the āthis needs 500 hours and direct sunlightā stuff, but letting the capacitors fill out and internals warm over a day made a meaningful difference, and Iām sure further changes after 24hrs were less directly noticeable.
Like you I stepped away, kind of disappointed because I was literally calculating how much Iād lose on a return, and then when I tried it again later that night it was like a different amp. My ears didnt adapt, I didnt play through the pain all day until I lost hearing lol, and it didnt go from harsh to tolerable. Itās smooth to a fault now, if anything.
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Itās strange that owners of the Rebel have this slight scratching when turning the volume knob. As stated this does not impact the sound in any way.
However mine is totally smooth. Is this just a condition that some owners are observing?
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I have no scratchiness on mine.
Mine is very smooth. No scratchiness.
it feels buttery smooth but there is a sound to it, but that may depend on your own standards of how much a pot should be inaudible while turning; its a nitpicky thing for me
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Actually I just discovered my RebelAmp knob IS scratchy, but only around 1-2 OāClock. Because I have pretty easy-to-drive headphones and powered speakers, Iāve never turned it up that high so I never noticed! Go fig.
Im sure the scratchy sound is extremely minor. Zeos had same situation which was caused by volume knob being a bit too close to face plate. Fyi here is what artem said about it.
If you open up the case and remove the knob you can clean it and work some dielectric grease into it and itās a literal fix. Did it on my 789 when it started bugging me and it was forever fine until I gave that POS away.
I thought the knob was glued on and couldnāt be removed. That was one of the complaints with the 789 and 887 thx amps.
Rebel amp knob has a screw that allows removal from the outside.
Yeah you gotta pull the guts out and lube the shaft 
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put this aftermarket knob on the black, think it suits it better (matching black with white notch to match the logo)
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def not from that in my experience (Iāve adjusted it, theres no contact, youād feel that), I think its just common of the brand. My other amp with an ALPS pot is similar
how do you get the grease in there? itās an exclosed box and not as obvious to me as a vintage amp where you just spray some Deoxit or WD40 into the mechanism